Space Shuttles Resting Places to Be Announced on April 12

There are only two missions left until human kind's first reusable space crafts will enter the history books. Discovery has landed for the last time in March, Endeavor and Atlantis are to follow later this year.

Once the other two would have landed for the last time, two lucky museums will get their hands on them and display them for future generations. The names of these museums will be announced on Tuesday, April 12, the date when NASA celebrates the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle mission in history.

For Discovery, the final resting place has been rumored to be (although not officially confirmed) the Smithsonian. Certainly, it meets the criteria laid down by the agency to be eligible to get the Discovery. Discovery is said to replace the current shuttle owned by the museum, the Enterprise (a prototype which never flew into space), which will in turn be given to one of the bidders below.

The most likely names to be associated from now on with the space shuttles are the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan, the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

But, regardless of the names of the museums, all of them will pay the equivalent of a very small country's GDP to get their hands on the ships: $28.8 million.

The announcement will be made from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.